A little less than a week ago, I was teaching a group of high school and middle school students about Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus in John chapter 3. But if we call this Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus we might miss something about, what I would argue to be, one of the most significant points of Jesus’ teaching here. The vital teaching that Jesus gives is that Nicodemus cannot really ‘encounter’ Jesus, unless Jesus encounters him first. The new birth is something we have to let God do to us. It is something passive. To illustrate I used the story of Eustace, the unpleasant boy who turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. One of the strangest yet somewhat magical lines in that book is the Lion’s advice to Eustace just before he is changed back into a boy: “you’ll have to let me undress you.”
When I said those words to these students I suddenly discovered that there was an imprisoned giggle all over the room. Grins and open teeth began instantly forming. I felt that I needed to break the ice so I said it was okay to laugh. Immediately, students began to laugh aloud, look at their friends, and express to each other how strange this story was. Even more laughter exploded when I began to go on with the story and describe how Eustace laid down and let the Lion actually undress him. I’ll admit, the words are a bit scandalous. Our entertainment culture would have fun with a line like that. I can see a sly joke forming in Jimmy Kimmel’s mind already. The words may have been a bit less scandalous to Lewis when he wrote them, and most likely to the children he was targeting with them. But, considering what I have written below, this might be one of the crucial reasons Jesus tells us to be like little children in our faith.
It began to occur to me later on, that those words that the lion spoke were perfectly suited to describe the new birth, which is one of the most intimate things that can ever happen to anyone. The new birth is quite a scandalous thing. It is here that you have to let God make new the ugly and dark parts of your life. But before you can let God do that, you have to give those things to God. But before you can do that, you have to touch and look at it like the underbelly of a large rock. That’s something scandalous and uncomfortable if I’ve ever heard it. Perhaps, this is why we see Nicodemus outraged by Jesus’ response that in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven you have to be born from above. The new birth, in some sense, is never easy for anyone.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
The Art of Starting
As summer approaches I am drawn to think about what sort of reading material will occupy my bedside table and house couch given that the summer months bring a new sense of freedom to my bookshelf. But in the midst of this I came to the painful and uncomfortable realization that there have been written way too many books that I would be interested in reading, and there is no possible amount of time in my life to read them. Perhaps this is a personal and unusual fight with pessimism, that forces me to think that the possibility of reading them all is simply an illusion when it is not. Reading lists are like blank canvases in many ways - filled with the most intense contradiction of wonderful possibility and stone-still intimidation. Perhaps I can apply what I've learned from painting, writing, and obedience to God to the summer reading list: the art of starting. I've just got to dig in and go after it.
While there are too many books to mention, I will say that my doctrine class has made me interested in the writings of Emile Brunner. Perhaps I will make a stop by the library.
While there are too many books to mention, I will say that my doctrine class has made me interested in the writings of Emile Brunner. Perhaps I will make a stop by the library.
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Last Chapter
Mr. Reynolds viewed the delivery with confusion the first time after she passed. The white, Styrofoam was strangely unfamiliar to him. His brow furrowed, and his eyebrows cocked as he tried to understand and comprehend. It was something sharp and untouchable. I know this because Mr. Reynolds did not even attempt to grasp it, did not even attempt to receive it or clutch it. I’ve heard that death does this to the world in which we live. The routine becomes alien. The routine delivery nailed spikes into wooden boxes…she’s gone now. He beckoned that I take the delivery into his house and set it down for him. I walked in to the dim living room that smelled like thick carpet and gently laid the delivery onto the table. I felt the need to go, to get out, and so I did. I said goodbye, and Mr. Reynolds gently smiled. As I closed the heavy door, I watched him look down at that strange familiarity laying on his coffee table. Mr. Reynolds seemed as if to be learning how to live again. And it was rather uncomfortable to watch. It was there in which it suddenly occurred to me that life is the turbulent stormy sky above the serene and silent ocean.
Mr. Reynolds viewed the delivery with less confusion the second time after she passed. This time in light blue, he slowly reached for the delivery. There was hesitancy. It was always a viable option to ask me to bring it and set it on the table. But after a moment, he reached for it. Mr. Reynolds’ poor vision caused him to lay his shaken and sandy hands far from the Styrofoam delivery. I helped him find it. He smiled and shut the door. He would put it on the table this time.
Mr. Reynolds wore his Yankee cap the third time after she passed. There was a smile in Mr. Reynolds’ eyes and less in his mouth. He did not hesitate to place his hands out far from the delivery. Once again, I helped him find it. He began to walk back into his house, and I shut the heavy door for him. As I walked back to my car, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Reynolds affected me this time. I suddenly caught a strange sense about something. I smiled and drove out of the driveway. I thanked God that, even in the last chapter of our lives, he is still recreating and growing new in us.
Mr. Reynolds viewed the delivery with less confusion the second time after she passed. This time in light blue, he slowly reached for the delivery. There was hesitancy. It was always a viable option to ask me to bring it and set it on the table. But after a moment, he reached for it. Mr. Reynolds’ poor vision caused him to lay his shaken and sandy hands far from the Styrofoam delivery. I helped him find it. He smiled and shut the door. He would put it on the table this time.
Mr. Reynolds wore his Yankee cap the third time after she passed. There was a smile in Mr. Reynolds’ eyes and less in his mouth. He did not hesitate to place his hands out far from the delivery. Once again, I helped him find it. He began to walk back into his house, and I shut the heavy door for him. As I walked back to my car, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Reynolds affected me this time. I suddenly caught a strange sense about something. I smiled and drove out of the driveway. I thanked God that, even in the last chapter of our lives, he is still recreating and growing new in us.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Now is the Time
One of the greatest works I have ever read is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. It challenges me and makes me uncomfortable. Here are some of my favorite lines:
"I had hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: 'All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry, It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teaching of Christ take time to come to earth.' Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangley irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."
"I had hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: 'All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry, It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teaching of Christ take time to come to earth.' Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangley irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Mistaking the Ocean for a Pool: A Surrender to Critical Rationalism
I was thinking the other day…
When I was a boy and I went to the pool, I would find myself participating in what could be considered an unusual practice. I do not know if anyone else has done this, did this, or still does. My family or those who may have witnessed me in my young age have never asked me about this and probably never noticed. This probably shouldn’t be too surprising, as it was not a practice of a highly flamboyant nature. It might be that I was fulfilling some sub-conscious male role as hunter/explorer in my prepubescent years. It may be that I was simply a loner and did not care to play another rousing game of Marco polo. Perhaps it was some strange form of obsessive compulsiveness. Questions aside, I would find myself mysteriously drawn to the middle of the pool like a moth hovering towards a cabin light, wading there for a bit. As I waded I would look around to all sides and all corners, gauging the layout and population of what surrounded me within the confines of the pool. I would then suddenly get the urge to swim to all corners, wanting to search all points of the pool - every nook. Of particular enjoyment was going to those areas in the deep end that were unoccupied. Once I had successfully swam to these unexplored areas I simply waded for a bit, splashed around, hovered. Once my mission was accomplished and I had thoroughly been to all areas of the pool, I would be free to play and do what I wanted. In retrospect this whole ritual seems entirely odd. I suppose that a sufficient explanation of this was a need to conquer the great water-filled concrete dune. But what I want whoever is reading this to notice is not so much the peculiar nature of this practice, but the geography of the practice. In a defined pool, with clear markers of depth, I was able to explore every part of the pool. I was able to go as deep as the pool went, as wide as the pool went.
When I was a boy, I also went to the ocean two or three times. But it never crossed my mind to perform this ritual in the ocean. It would be quite ludicrous to attempt it. The ocean is enormous, almost infinite to a young lad. There are depths that no human has ever been able to achieve. There are caves holding creatures that no human has ever laid eyes on. There are no smooth concrete floors; no paved stairways leading out of it, no neatly defined measurements. The ocean is wild and untamed, full of ferocity and beauty.
The climax of my thought is this: I have often mistaken oceanic truth for pool truth. By truth I mean Truth: faith truth, Christianity truth, God truth, life truth, universe truth, reality truth – however you want to refer to it. I have the tendency to want to know all of truth, particularly what is revealed in scripture. I want to swim into all of its nooks and corners. I want to know it, to memorize it, to package it neatly and creatively, and teach it. But the more I study, the more I discover that the truth of my faith is not like the pool. There are certainly places I can swim to quite contently and confidently, but there are other places to which I cannot. The truth of my faith is fierce and wild. It is rowdy and stormy. It cannot be fully contained or grasped, and will never be.
So what is the moral of this aquatic lesson for me? Quite clearly, the moral is to be humble about what I can know and what I can master and to be aware of my need for God’s infinite grace. I’m constantly a student of the great mysterious God of Israel and will never be an expert. But there is a comforting, almost warm thought in this intellectual surrender. It seems quite a bit more appealing to base my life on oceanic truth rather than some chlorine-filled YMCA truth. It seems quite appropriate that the truth surrounding the God of the Universe is wild, unbounded, rowdy, and…holy. This is the type of truth I could never tire of swimming in.
When I was a boy and I went to the pool, I would find myself participating in what could be considered an unusual practice. I do not know if anyone else has done this, did this, or still does. My family or those who may have witnessed me in my young age have never asked me about this and probably never noticed. This probably shouldn’t be too surprising, as it was not a practice of a highly flamboyant nature. It might be that I was fulfilling some sub-conscious male role as hunter/explorer in my prepubescent years. It may be that I was simply a loner and did not care to play another rousing game of Marco polo. Perhaps it was some strange form of obsessive compulsiveness. Questions aside, I would find myself mysteriously drawn to the middle of the pool like a moth hovering towards a cabin light, wading there for a bit. As I waded I would look around to all sides and all corners, gauging the layout and population of what surrounded me within the confines of the pool. I would then suddenly get the urge to swim to all corners, wanting to search all points of the pool - every nook. Of particular enjoyment was going to those areas in the deep end that were unoccupied. Once I had successfully swam to these unexplored areas I simply waded for a bit, splashed around, hovered. Once my mission was accomplished and I had thoroughly been to all areas of the pool, I would be free to play and do what I wanted. In retrospect this whole ritual seems entirely odd. I suppose that a sufficient explanation of this was a need to conquer the great water-filled concrete dune. But what I want whoever is reading this to notice is not so much the peculiar nature of this practice, but the geography of the practice. In a defined pool, with clear markers of depth, I was able to explore every part of the pool. I was able to go as deep as the pool went, as wide as the pool went.
When I was a boy, I also went to the ocean two or three times. But it never crossed my mind to perform this ritual in the ocean. It would be quite ludicrous to attempt it. The ocean is enormous, almost infinite to a young lad. There are depths that no human has ever been able to achieve. There are caves holding creatures that no human has ever laid eyes on. There are no smooth concrete floors; no paved stairways leading out of it, no neatly defined measurements. The ocean is wild and untamed, full of ferocity and beauty.
The climax of my thought is this: I have often mistaken oceanic truth for pool truth. By truth I mean Truth: faith truth, Christianity truth, God truth, life truth, universe truth, reality truth – however you want to refer to it. I have the tendency to want to know all of truth, particularly what is revealed in scripture. I want to swim into all of its nooks and corners. I want to know it, to memorize it, to package it neatly and creatively, and teach it. But the more I study, the more I discover that the truth of my faith is not like the pool. There are certainly places I can swim to quite contently and confidently, but there are other places to which I cannot. The truth of my faith is fierce and wild. It is rowdy and stormy. It cannot be fully contained or grasped, and will never be.
So what is the moral of this aquatic lesson for me? Quite clearly, the moral is to be humble about what I can know and what I can master and to be aware of my need for God’s infinite grace. I’m constantly a student of the great mysterious God of Israel and will never be an expert. But there is a comforting, almost warm thought in this intellectual surrender. It seems quite a bit more appealing to base my life on oceanic truth rather than some chlorine-filled YMCA truth. It seems quite appropriate that the truth surrounding the God of the Universe is wild, unbounded, rowdy, and…holy. This is the type of truth I could never tire of swimming in.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
some poems
The Hitch-Hiker
I see you
Do i know that you see me?
You stand, for me, at a gap
Two things rage against one another
One tells me you're Jesus
My hand holds tightly, the steering wheel
Another says have the wisdom of a serpant
I don't understand
My eyes roam elsewhere
But you beckon and call me
7/30/07
Rolling silently
Filled-a liquid sky
Undistinguished between the streaked
Sky and the painted waters
Red against blue
Orange against lavender
The waters declare
The glory of the heavens
"Ye lights of evening find a voice"
Your kingdom is here
The seaweed sways to the rhythm of
Your waters - It's alive!
It waits for You
Your winds move the waters
Even now
I see you
Do i know that you see me?
You stand, for me, at a gap
Two things rage against one another
One tells me you're Jesus
My hand holds tightly, the steering wheel
Another says have the wisdom of a serpant
I don't understand
My eyes roam elsewhere
But you beckon and call me
7/30/07
Rolling silently
Filled-a liquid sky
Undistinguished between the streaked
Sky and the painted waters
Red against blue
Orange against lavender
The waters declare
The glory of the heavens
"Ye lights of evening find a voice"
Your kingdom is here
The seaweed sways to the rhythm of
Your waters - It's alive!
It waits for You
Your winds move the waters
Even now
Friday, September 14, 2007
A Remnant from the Garden
The other day I was driving through Illinois when one of those dazzling moments occurred. This was the type of moment that should be put to film or be the inspiration for a thousand songs, the type of moment in which reality pauses and indulges in something sweet. Left alone from any sort of traffic, the smooth asphalt highway was mine alone and consequently so were the beautiful Illinois wheat fields sprawled out from the highway for miles like great feathery wings shuffling from the slight breeze. Ahead of me on the right I was approaching a forested area with trees that lined the highway. And then, in a fleeting glimpse, a sudden instance, I saw two of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen. With a delicate and quiet agility that only these two animals could possibly attain, the two creatures suddenly appeared in wondrous motion on the road ahead of me. In fact, they were nearly off the road and galloping into the forest before I set my eyes upon them. But as suggested before these exceptional moments tend to be extremely generous and even have the power to inflect time and even stop it. This afforded my eyes the opportunity to gaze at these creatures. I was able to see the fine and beautiful way that they were constructed and built. Their smooth muscles were fitting for their staunch but slender legs. The bob tails were bouncing up and down as they galloped. These creatures seemed so fragile yet so complete. There long necks were just strong enough to support their rapidly jittering heads. I was even able to glance at their eyes from a distance deep and wild, taking in vast amounts of information. The hooves that met the highway, although silent from my vantage, seemed to generate some gorgeous melody anyway. I heard this melody as I watched the escaping leaves, rustled away from the trees, gently descending in flutter as the two creatures’ beautiful light brown coats allowed them to disappear into the forest and continue on in magnificent wildness…
So exclusive and blazing with significance was this picture I was invited to see that I felt almost unworthy. The word that came to my mind… “Perfection.”
What I witnessed that September afternoon was so completely serene, so completely natural that I felt immediately transported to the garden. It was as if I caught a glimpse of that splendid garden in the east, where all creation is new and man and wild beast lived in unusual harmony. Not yet tainted by fall, creation was so pure that God walked among it, completing it with every lingering moment.
It suddenly occurs to me why I have such a strong fascination with watching animals and touring trees. Somehow, their complete complexity and intricacy along with the simplicity of their untamed nature humbles my heart in many ways. It moves me to watch a horse run. It moves me to watch a falcon soar. It moves me to watch a spider spin a silver web. It moves me to watch a cat bathe itself with its small rose tongue. It moves me to watch a dog gently rest at the foot of its master. It moves me to watch a butterfly flutter around in tiny flashes. It moves me to watch a tree stand against the mighty wind and cling to the earth. It moves me to watch a tree lift its seeping branches into the air. It is because these things are holy, created to be beautiful … created to be. God Himself declared them good. In some strange way on some different sort of plane of knowledge, it seems that these creatures understand things much better than humans.
In a book called That Hideous Strength, Lewis writes about a large pet bear named Mr. Bultitude and in an altogether accurate way describes the mind of the bear:
“Mr. Bultitude’s mind was as furry and as unhuman in shape as his body…He did not know that he loved and trusted [his owners] now. He did not know that they were people, nor that he was a bear. Indeed, he did not know that he existed at all: everything that is represented by the words “I” and “Me” and “Thou” was absent from his mind.”
But then Lewis goes deeper:
“The appetencies which a human might disdain as cupboard loves were for him quivering and ecstatic aspirations which absorbed his whole being, infinite yearnings, stabbed with the threat of tragedy and shot through with the colors of Paradise. One of our race, if plunged back for a moment in the warm, trembling, iridescent pool of that pre-Adamite consciousness, would have emerged believing that he had grasped the absolute: for the states below reason and the states above it have, by their common contrast to the life we know, a certain superficial resemblance. Sometimes there returns to us from infancy the memory of a nameless delight or terror, unattached to any delightful or dreadful thing, a potent adjective floating in a nounless void, a pure quality. At such moments we have experience of the shallows of that pool. But fathoms deeper than any memory can take us, right down in the central warmth and dimness, the bear lived all its life” (p. 306).
Perhaps, I merely dipped my toe in that lustrous pool on that warm afternoon as I watched two creatures that were fully immersed in it. For it is not this remnant of the garden that is tied down by the often-times vociferous naming and explaining of experience that can sometimes keep the beautiful but fallen human mind and heart from liberation. The remnant has discovered the delightful secret of living experience rather than trying to be a master over it.
Do you ever feel distance from the Creator? Friends, I adjure you to go outside and experience the fierce reality of creation. Do not merely go outside to read or draw or paint. Do not merely use creation as a vehicle for your own agenda. But go outside and look at it. Go and see it. Enjoy it for its own created sake. I would suggest conversing with it. St. Francis did this often. Allow God to renew your mind in the visions of His creation. Discover why the Pslamist wrote that His glory fills the earth. What does that mean? Then, perhaps, we will discover more of our holy Creator.
So exclusive and blazing with significance was this picture I was invited to see that I felt almost unworthy. The word that came to my mind… “Perfection.”
What I witnessed that September afternoon was so completely serene, so completely natural that I felt immediately transported to the garden. It was as if I caught a glimpse of that splendid garden in the east, where all creation is new and man and wild beast lived in unusual harmony. Not yet tainted by fall, creation was so pure that God walked among it, completing it with every lingering moment.
It suddenly occurs to me why I have such a strong fascination with watching animals and touring trees. Somehow, their complete complexity and intricacy along with the simplicity of their untamed nature humbles my heart in many ways. It moves me to watch a horse run. It moves me to watch a falcon soar. It moves me to watch a spider spin a silver web. It moves me to watch a cat bathe itself with its small rose tongue. It moves me to watch a dog gently rest at the foot of its master. It moves me to watch a butterfly flutter around in tiny flashes. It moves me to watch a tree stand against the mighty wind and cling to the earth. It moves me to watch a tree lift its seeping branches into the air. It is because these things are holy, created to be beautiful … created to be. God Himself declared them good. In some strange way on some different sort of plane of knowledge, it seems that these creatures understand things much better than humans.
In a book called That Hideous Strength, Lewis writes about a large pet bear named Mr. Bultitude and in an altogether accurate way describes the mind of the bear:
“Mr. Bultitude’s mind was as furry and as unhuman in shape as his body…He did not know that he loved and trusted [his owners] now. He did not know that they were people, nor that he was a bear. Indeed, he did not know that he existed at all: everything that is represented by the words “I” and “Me” and “Thou” was absent from his mind.”
But then Lewis goes deeper:
“The appetencies which a human might disdain as cupboard loves were for him quivering and ecstatic aspirations which absorbed his whole being, infinite yearnings, stabbed with the threat of tragedy and shot through with the colors of Paradise. One of our race, if plunged back for a moment in the warm, trembling, iridescent pool of that pre-Adamite consciousness, would have emerged believing that he had grasped the absolute: for the states below reason and the states above it have, by their common contrast to the life we know, a certain superficial resemblance. Sometimes there returns to us from infancy the memory of a nameless delight or terror, unattached to any delightful or dreadful thing, a potent adjective floating in a nounless void, a pure quality. At such moments we have experience of the shallows of that pool. But fathoms deeper than any memory can take us, right down in the central warmth and dimness, the bear lived all its life” (p. 306).
Perhaps, I merely dipped my toe in that lustrous pool on that warm afternoon as I watched two creatures that were fully immersed in it. For it is not this remnant of the garden that is tied down by the often-times vociferous naming and explaining of experience that can sometimes keep the beautiful but fallen human mind and heart from liberation. The remnant has discovered the delightful secret of living experience rather than trying to be a master over it.
Do you ever feel distance from the Creator? Friends, I adjure you to go outside and experience the fierce reality of creation. Do not merely go outside to read or draw or paint. Do not merely use creation as a vehicle for your own agenda. But go outside and look at it. Go and see it. Enjoy it for its own created sake. I would suggest conversing with it. St. Francis did this often. Allow God to renew your mind in the visions of His creation. Discover why the Pslamist wrote that His glory fills the earth. What does that mean? Then, perhaps, we will discover more of our holy Creator.
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